Nasa asteroid simulation ends in unavoidable disaster for Earth

Sign up to our free weekly IndyTech newsletter delivered straight to your inbox Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. “These exercises ultimately help the planetary defence community communicate with each other and with our governments to ensure we are all coordinated should a potential impact threat be identified in the future.” Responding to the news of the failure, SpaceX boss Elon Musk said the lack of solution was “one of many reasons why we need larger and more advanced rockets”. >> Follow The Independent’s live coverage of latest Starship SN15 flight test << Combined with its Super Heavy rocket Booster, SpaceX claims Starship will be “the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever developed”, and could theoretically be used to assist missions designed to divert the path of an Earth-bound asteroid. “DART will be the first test for planetary defence, and the data returned after it impacts Dimorphos will help scientists better understand one way we might mitigate a potentially hazardous NEO discovered in the future,” said Andrea Riley, program executive for DART at Nasa. “While the asteroid DART impacts poses no threat to Earth, it is in a perfect location for us to perform this test of the technology before it may actually be needed.” Nasa is currently tracking roughly 25,000 NEOs and new discoveries are being added at a rate of around 30 each week.